3D Printer bed for 3D Printing Materials

3D Printer bed : How does it work ?

The bed can be fixed or moving, depending on the printer model and
the technology used to print the object.

For instance, Stereolithography technology, normally presuppose the
printer bed to be able to move down during the process, to allow
the superposition of thin layers which will eventually form the
final product.

Selective laser sintering technology also requires a moving bed, which lowers down each time
a new layer is applied on top of the previous one.

On the contrary, with Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), the printer
bed only acts as a support base for the object being built during
the entire process.

The movement precision of the printer bed determines the thickness
of the object layers, one of the consequences is that the thinner
they are, the smoother curved surfaces will appear.

The size of the printed object depends on the machine dimensions and
technology, considering that some objects need "build supports"
to provide balance during the printing process, which take place
from the printer bed implying the object will forcely be smaller
than it could if it was self-balanced.

This is a fundamental aspect Sculpteo focuses on, since we chose a
majority of powder base technologies, which do not need to add
supports to the object during the process, and allow instead to build sequently
one layer on the top of the other, which ends up increasing productivity,
which means lower cost for the client, since we can produce more
than one object in a single batch this way.

Our website provides a special tool, the
Batch Control
, to visualize the objects layout configuration.

Learn more about 3D Printers

If interested in buying a 3D printer, you may want to check the Guide
to Professional 3D Printers article from our blog.